Managers at Muscatatuck Refuge control water levels to benefit wildlife such as wood ducks.

Continued . . .

Many kinds of wildlife are seasonal at Muscatatuck. Winter attracts a variety of ducks to the refuge, and birds like tundra swans and bald eagles occasionally visit.

In the spring, wood ducks, Canada geese, and a pair of bald eagles begin nesting, while most other migratory waterfowl depart on their annual spring migration. In April, great blue herons nest in a rookery in the Moss Lake area, and great egrets visit the refuge. Migrating warblers pass through in May.

Geese and wood duck broods are common in June. By August, the young birds of summer are flying, and early migrant blue-wing teal arrive to mark the beginning of the fall migration. Ospreys and cormorants appear over the big lakes, sandhill cranes fly over the refuge on their way south, and the winter songbirds return.

The rare copperbelly water snake also lives here. This beautiful, totally harmless snake is common on the refuge but rare nationwide, because of the loss of the snake's wetland habitat. Remember, snakes and other animals and plants are protected on the refuge and should not be harmed!

Muscatatuck is also home to river otters, once common in Indiana but then eliminated by overtrapping and loss of habitat. Muscatatuck became the first otter reintroduction site in Indiana in 1995.

Today Muscatatuck is a very scenic blend of hardwood forest, wetlands, brush-land reverting to forest, cropland, and grassland habitat.